Insight

Canada’s successful approach to citizenship is being threatened by current trends in immigration policy.

Anniversaries such as Canada Day are a good time to take stock of long-term changes in the lifestyles, attitudes and values that characterize our society. Incremental changes can seem matter of fact as they unfold in daily life, but their cumulative effects can be remarkable.

American-born urban economist Jane Jacobs died in 2006. She was the thought leader and inspiration to a generation of Torontonians who celebrated diversity, density, vitality and livable neighbourhoods, who loved public transit and hated expressways and cars.

If someone asked you to describe all the important relationships in your life - to people, places, even to organizations and institutions - where would the federal government rank?

The climate-change Olympics are still under way in Copenhagen, with each nation in attendance participating in a bizarre competition to see how well they can pronounce the party line on climate change while making the fewest concessions for tough actions back home.

Toronto Mayor David Miller might be the only prominent figure in history to leave a high-powered job claiming he wants to spend more time with his family - and actually mean it.

By now, you may have made the acquaintance of Shona Holmes, a woman from Waterdown, Ont., who says her life was almost cut short by the plodding, government-run health care system of her native Canada.

I grew up during a time when it was said that everything that happened in the United States would eventually come to Canada. For me, the most evocative annual illustration of this was the auto show at Toronto's Exhibition Place, where Detroit's latest contributions to mobility and status were put on display for aspirational Ontarians to drool over.

Like many people around the world, Canadians have been suffering for several months with a nagging chronic condition. The affliction is likely to flare up painfully in the coming weeks. The condition is Obama-envy, and the flare-up will be induced by the visit of the new President on Feb. 19.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his team have expressed the desire to move Canada in an incrementally more conservative direction through successive Conservative governments.